The increasing demand for gold and other precious metals for industrial processes, investments, and other uses has caused the market prices for such metals to increase to record levels. The high market price of gold has prompted owners of gold and other precious metals to frequent establishments equipped to purchase these metals. Because metals presented for sale may be from different areas and may be of varying composition, metal buying establishments must either smelt and assay such metals before they can, in turn, sell it to an establishment capable of further processing the metal. As used herein, the term gold will be assumed to include other precious metals such as, but not limited to, silver, platinum, copper, etc.
Such gold or gold alloys may be located in areas not readily serviced by roads making even the transportable, self-contained assay facility of the Ser. No. 13/731,163, hereinafter the '163 application impractical for use in such locations. Therefore, the need exists for an assay facility for use in areas not served by roads and where the transportable, self-contained assay facility of the '163 application cannot be safely delivered to a site by aircraft or a site is not hospitable for any semi-permanent structure. This is particularly true when no semi-permanent facility is justified. Perhaps there is only a single pickup and/or processing of precious metal anticipated. In other circumstances, while there may be multiple precious metal pickups and processing, they are spaced so far apart that a semi-permanent assay facility is not justified.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a self-contained assay facility that is completely setup are ready to assay precious metal in an aircraft, either fixed wing or rotary wing, that may be flown to a site and then, flown to a different site upon completion of a precious metal transaction at a first site.